AINSI - An Inductive Software Process Improvement Method: Concrete
Steps and Guidelines
AINSI - An Inductive Software Process Improvement Method: Concrete
Steps and Guidelines
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Date
1998-10-15
Authors
Briand, Lionel
Eman, Kaled El
Melo, Walcelio L.
Advisor
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DRUM DOI
Abstract
Top-down approaches to process improvement based on generic "best
practice" models (e.g., CMM, TRILLIUM, BOOTSTRAP, SPICE) have become
popular. Despite the idiosyncrasies of each of these approaches, they
share some common characteristics: all of them are based on numerous
assumptions about what are best practices, and about the business
goals of organizations and the problems they face. Other
organizations, like the Software Engineering Laboratory of the NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center, HP and CRIM in Canada, have adopted the
Quality Improvement Paradigm (QIP). The QIP stipulates a more
bottom-up and inductive approach to process improvement. The focus of
this paradigm is to first understand what processes exist in the
organization and to determine what causes the most significant
problems. Based on this, opportunities for improvement are devised,
and empirical studies are conducted to evaluate potential
solutions. In this paper, we present a method, named AINSI (An
INductive Software process Improvment method), which defines general
but concrete steps and guidelines for putting in place the QIP. This
method is the result of the collective experiences of the authors and
integrates many lessons learned from process improvement efforts in
different environments. It also integrates many complementary
techniques such as qualitative analysis, methods for data collection
(e.g., the Goal/Question/Metric paradigm), and quantitative
evaluation.
(Also cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-95-77)